Stress busting tip number 15 - music

Hi there, this is Caroline Cavanagh. I'm an anxiety specialist and I'm here today to share with you tip number 15 of my stress-busting tips. My aim is throughout Advent to share 24 different tips with you. 24 because we live in a very stressful world and different situations require different tools. So I always say to people, if you only had one tool in your toolset, which may be like a hammer, you're just going to hit everything very hard, where sometimes you might need just a little bit more finesse. So with 24 different tips, you can always have a tool that is most appropriate for that particular situation that you're within. And living in this stressful world, the reason for sharing these tips is to give you and as many people as possible the resources that help us at this very stressful period, not just Christmas but the end— or who knows if it's the end— of the COVID period and whatever 2021 is going to throw at us. Stress is not going to go away, but how we deal with stress in our internal world can be very, very different. So, so far I've shared some tips that are really good as kind of stress preventatives, stop you escalating to those high periods. There's a whole range of tips that I've shared that are all about managing stress in the moment, and tip 15 is one of my 3 what I call first aid tips. They're the things that come into place when you're kind of at that crisis mode, it's an emergency, and it's just to quickly take you from up there into something a little bit lower where one of the other tools can come into play. So of the 3, we've spoken about breathing, which is the first first aid. We've also spoken about posture, which is the second one, and this one is music. And I love this one because by having our phones around us, we've pretty much always got instant access to music. So what I would love you to do is to put a playlist together, and it may only be 3 songs, but these 3 songs are really, really important ones. They need to be tunes that either, A, take you back to a memory or a time and place that evokes really strong positive feelings into you. So if you're married, it may be the song that you did your first dance to on your wedding day. It may be like a song from the disco when you were 16 and life was just incredible. Or it may be a song that you just can't help starting to kind of jig to. So I love kind of salsa-type music, so in my playlist I've got 3 or 4 songs that straight away I can't— even if I'm really, really stressed, I can't help starting to boogie. And as you know, with the posture tip, as soon as you change your posture, you change your access to different feelings. So this kind of starts to meld all of these things together. And similarly, when you start listening to music, even singing along, you change your breathing. When you change your breathing, you change your stress levels. So let me give you a little personal story. I— gosh, what it would have been— about 4 or 5 years ago, did a parachute jump. And major stress before. I had a major meltdown before getting in this plane. But when I'd done the jump and I'd still got adrenaline levels kind of up there, I got into my car, and as I turned the car on, the first song that came on on the radio was a Sia song called I'm Alive. And I just sat in my car and I roared with laughter, having just plummeted from 15,000 feet. I could go, I'm alive! And now every time I hear that song, I still get a little bit of an adrenaline rush because it takes me back to that moment, and when you've got adrenaline in your system, it's going to change how you feel. So find, say, 3 minimum. I think in mine I've got about a dozen or so. I'm a massive Rocky Horror fan, and so yes, I have got the Time Warp, because again, it's just a step to the left. Uh, find those songs for you, and it means that by having them on your phone— don't get them through Spotify, download them so wherever you are, Wi-Fi Or not, you can play it. And when you feel those stress levels high, take yourself somewhere, even take yourself to the bathroom, plug in and listen to a tune, and you will feel your stress going from that emergency mode back into something where you can then, as I say, access some of the other tools to then continue taking you down in that hierarchy of stress. So put your playlist together, And in that playlist, if you haven't already listened to the tip about posture or the tip breathing, they're all available on the Facebook page. They're also all going to be available on YouTube. Hi Paul, lovely to see you. Take a look at those as well because those 3 are the most key ones. Everything else then becomes a bonus. Have those 3 together, you're always going to be able to get yourself out of those emergency stress modes. So thank you very much for listening. I'm going to be back very, very soon with tip number 16, and let's go and be less stressed. As with all of the other videos, for anyone that's kind enough to share these— because again, as I said right at the beginning, my motivation behind doing this is to help people feel less stressed. If we can make there less stress in the world, it's going to be a happier place for all of us to live in. So everyone that's kind enough to share these videos, or anyone that's kind enough to also like my Facebook page, because that helps again spread the— what's the word they call it? I don't know, I can't even remember. Reach, that's the one. More people get to see these, more people get to learn the tools. I'm gonna put everyone's name that does either of those 2 things for me into a hat, and after Christmas draw some names out and give them the opportunity to work with me one-to-one so I can, uh, thank you in the way that I know best and help you in your anxiety and stress too. So over and out for now, and back very soon with tip number 16. Bye-bye.